Saturday, December 26, 2015

Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people. (1 Samuel 2:26)

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. (Luke 2:52)

When
I was a child, I loved this story. Jesus
was holding his own with the adults. The
picture in my third grade Bible portrayed him as a young boy who was lecturing
the religious leaders. There he stood in his little tunic, speaking confidently
to the old men in their robes. They stroked their beards and looked at him
quizzically. How could such a young boy understand so much? Clearly he was the
Holy Whiz Kid who needed to be in the Father’s house, and I liked that. I liked
that Jesus was a kid.

When
I was a teenager, I heard something else in the story: Jesus talked back to his
mother! Jesus was twelve years old, just a year or two younger than me. His
mother was complaining about how he “treated” them, when all he wanted to do
was to talk with the teachers. What was her problem? He wasn’t treating her
badly; he was talking about the Bible. He wasn’t wandering the streets, he was
in the Temple. Isn’t that a mother would want her child to be, especially the
mother of Jesus? So he talks back to her, and the storyteller says she and
Joseph didn’t have a clue. When I was a teenager, I liked that.

When
I became a parent, the story shifted and took on a new perspective. Suddenly I
could imagine what it was like to have one of your kids wander off. It scared
me, just like when I would ask one of my kids to get some paper towels at
Target and they wouldn’t come back. I trusted them, I gave them some freedom
and some responsibility, and I had to hunt them down in the candy aisle. I
could imagine Mary and Joseph worrying themselves sick.

They
had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover in a great crowd of pilgrims.
The holiday was over and the large group from Nazareth traveled back north.
Everybody traveled en masse – all the families, all the cousins, all the
children. They tell me it was about a hundred twenty miles, and would have
taken five days. On the first night, Joseph says, “Where is Jesus?” Mary doesn’t
know. They can’t find him in the encampment, so they travel a full day back to
Jerusalem, retracing their steps. And on the third day, they find him.

I
think scripture gives us an edited conversation. Mary and Joseph probably had a
lot more to say than what the Gospel of Luke records. They were upset and they
were angry. And there was Jesus, talking about the commandments, one of which
declares, “You shall honor your father and mother, so that your days will be
long…” (Exodus 20:12). “So kid, you get up and get moving, or else I’m going to
make you eat matzah and horseradish for a whole month.”

But
now when I hear the story, I hear something more. This story is about more than
the Wonder Child, more than the Surly Adolescent, more than the object of his
parent’s anxiety. This is about the young man who is schooled in the Torah of
Israel. His life is being shaped by the teaching of scripture. It says Jesus
sits and listens to the teachers. He asks questions. When they ask questions of
him, he offers answers. It never says he miraculously knows it all. No, he is a
student of the ways of God. He is studying and he is learning.

Clearly
he got this from his parents. It was their custom to go to Jerusalem to
celebrate the Jewish deliverance from Egyptian slavery. They were Jews, and
they lived out their faith. They knew God spoke to them in the words of
scripture, and they took responsibility for nurturing the faith of their son.
That is what this story is about. A Jewish family has a Jewish son, whose faith
is so shaped that he wants to be in the Father’s house.

After
all, this is the Gospel of Luke. Luke begins his Gospel in the Jerusalem Temple
In chapter one, there is a priest named Zechariah who is serving in the Temple.
In chapter twenty-four, the Easter story concludes with the disciples returning
to Jerusalem, where they were “continually in the Temple blessing God.” (Luke
24:53)

Luke
understands that Jesus doesn’t come out of nowhere. He comes out of somewhere.
His life has been shaped by the faith of his family, the faith of his people.

This
isn’t a concern for the Gospel of Mark. Mark says John appeared in the
wilderness, and voila! Jesus came to be baptized. We don’t know anything about
him, except he came from Nazareth (1:9), had a home in Capernaum (2:1), and had
some brothers (3:31). In chapter six, Mark tells us he was a carpenter (6:3),
but that’s about it.

Luke
says that is not good enough. Jesus had a history. He came from a family, he
had an ancestry, he had a religious heritage . . . and he grew up. As Luke puts
it, “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor
(2:52).” That sounds like a mere tag line, a summary, but listen to it for what
it says: Jesus wasn’t finished when he was born. He continued to grow.

Ever
see those Renaissance portraits of Christmas? The baby is in the arms of Mary,
and the baby’s face is that of a mature adult. That’s all wrong – it’s making a
theological statement about the eternal wisdom of the pre-existent Christ, but
that’s not how the scene actually looked. Jesus was a human baby who looked
like a baby. When he was twelve years old, he looked and acted like a twelve
year old. Sure, he was a little precocious, but he was also well schooled in
the Torah.

And
then after that, Luke says he continued to grow up. He “increased in wisdom,”
and that takes a while. Wisdom doesn’t happen overnight. He “increased in
years,” and that takes a while too. Some of you know about that. And then Luke
says, “he increased in human favor,” that is, more and more people liked him.

And
in a startling phrase, Luke adds, “he increased in divine favor.” Now, before
you wonder what that means, let me point out that Luke stole those words from
somebody else. He didn’t come up with the phrase all by himself. He lifted it
from the scrolls of the scriptures, specifically 1 Samuel 2:26. Speaking of
Israel’s first prophet, the Bible says, “The
boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and
with the people.”

How about that? Luke wants us to
know that Jesus was so saturated in the faith of Israel, that he uses the words
of Israel’s scripture to talk about the young boy’s growth. People sometimes
think that Luke is interested only in extending the Gospel to the Gentiles, to
the outsiders out there somewhere. Not true; he tells us that Jesus and his Gospel
come from somewhere – they come from the promises of God to the people of
Israel.

So Jesus has been instructed, “You
shall honor your father and your mother,” so he returns to Nazareth, and is
obedient to his parents. When they say the next year, “Let’s go back to
Jerusalem again for the Passover,” he goes with them, and I’m sure his mother
made sure he didn’t wander off again.

And when the Sabbath comes on
Friday night, he takes off his carpenter’s apron, ceases from his weekly work,
and says the blessing, “Blessed are you, O God, ruler of the universe, who
sanctified us with the commandments and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath
commandments.”

And Jesus continues to learn how
to read, even though the neighbors probably said, “You’re a carpenter, why do
you need to learn how to read?” But he insisted on learning how to read the
scriptures. It was his custom, says Luke (4:16-17), and he could find his way
around the Bible.

And he grew in his understanding
of what the Bible actually says. When the Tempter came to him and quoted
scripture, as a way of twisting him into self-destruction, Jesus knew the
scriptures even better, and he knew that
the scriptures teach us to love God more than everything else (4:1-13).

The point is simple: you can’t make
your way through the world unless you grow up, unless you continue to grow in
your comprehension of God and his ways, unless you learn how to trust, unless
somebody instructs you to “do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly
with your God.” (Micah 6:8). These things don’t come naturally for us. We have
to be taught.

So Jesus returned to Nazareth and
was obedient to his parents. He grew in wisdom, he advanced in years, and he increased
in the favor of God and his neighbors.

And years later, when the time
came for God to call him and say, “I have work for you to do,” he was ready.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields,
keeping watch over their flock by night.Then an angel of the Lord stood before them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.But the angel said to them, “Do not be
afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:to you is born this day in the city of
David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.This will be a sign for you: you will find
a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”And suddenly there was with the angel a
multitude of the heavenly host,praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest
heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

The
television executives were nervous. It was a week before “A Charlie Brown
Christmas” was set to air, and they didn’t like the show.

Children
were voicing the characters of children, and that had never been done before. There
was no laugh track, unlike most of the television shows of the time. Some moments
of the plot were moody and melancholy, and the jazz soundtrack didn’t help. The
pacing was slow and the animation was too simple.

But
the greatest objection was the speech that Linus made in the school auditorium.
After contending with an unruly cast for the Christmas play, Charlie Brown
cries out, “Doesn’t anybody know what Christmas is all about?” Linus steps
forward and tells the Bible story about the birth of Jesus.

“We
can’t do that,” complained one of the television executives. “A Christmas
special can’t be religious. That will narrow the audience. We would be crucified.”
That was 1965, shortly before the premiere. They discussed cancelling the show
at the last minute, but somebody realized it was already in print in TV Guide.
So they decided to run it once and bury it forever.

What
they didn’t expect is that 45% of the viewing public tuned in to watch, and the
show won an Emmy and a Peabody award. A lot of us have been watching ever
since.

What
is Christmas all about? Charles Schulz was most insistent: it’s about the birth
of Jesus. It’s not about the aluminum trees, which went out of style in part
because of the Peanuts special. It’s not about getting first prize in a house decorating
contest. It’s not about telling Santa that you’ve been good, so he can reward
you with “tens and twenties.”

“Oh
no,” said Charles Schulz to producer Lee Mendelsohn, “if you take out the story
of Jesus, there is no Christmas special.” A Christmas without Christ is no
Christmas at all.

Of
course, that is a disputed opinion. In 1965, only nine percent of all the
Christmas shows on TV had any religious theme or symbolism,[1]
and that was fifty years ago. These days, it is entirely possible to have a
secular Christmas, and many people do.

As
Lucy said to Charlie Brown, “Let’s face it. We all know that Christmas is a big
commercial racket. It’s run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.”

But
here we are, you and I, the keepers of Christmas. We know what it’s all about,
and we have heard the angels again this night: “Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of
great joy for all the people:to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who
is the Messiah,the Lord.”

This is good news of a great joy. It
still is for all the people, even if they miss it or if they are weary
of it, even if it prompts so much excess that it is hard to keep up with it. At
the heart of Christmas is the birth of a Savior. He is born a child, so he will
be vulnerable. His human birth sets aside his heavenly power as Lord, so he
will be overlooked.

Jesus still makes a lot of people
nervous. Not just the television executives and the advertising agencies, but kings
like Herod who are threatened by his sovereignty. Those who pretend to have
power so they can boss others around are cut short by the humility of a newborn
child. Even all those kids who make fun of Charlie Brown and his little Christmas
tree are silenced by the story of a God who comes to live among us.

The truth of Christmas is that God takes
on vulnerable human flesh. God knows what it’s like to be blue at the holidays,
and God also knows that unexpected joy empowers us to cut loose and dance.

So the message comes from the angels: “Don’t
be afraid.” That’s the Good News. Don’t be afraid of a God who knows you as you
are. Don’t be afraid of a God who loves you, in spite of your desire for a pile
of “tens and twenties.” Don’t be afraid for God to come and find you, wherever
you are tonight. God’s great Light will puncture the darkness and can interrupt
you with joy.

“Don’t be afraid.” When Linus says those
words to Charlie Brown and friends, he drops his security blanket.[2] Go back and look at the cartoon some time, it’s there. He doesn’t
need to hang onto his old securities because he trusts what the angels said is
true. “Unto you is born a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

The sacred breaks into our secular. The
power of Life invades a world obsessed with destruction. A humble child is born
to upend the brutal Empire of Caesar. That’s the truth of it. So we can look
into the dark sky and know the Light of the World has come. And we can pray
that somehow tonight or tomorrow or in the days to come, that Light will shine
upon us. “Light and life to all he brings” - and this is the promise of the
Gospel for you.

“Don’t be afraid.” A dark world has been
punctured by the grace of God, and God is here among us. That’s what Christmas
is all about, Charlie Brown.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

[1]Lind, Stephen J. "Christmas in the 1960s:
A Charlie Brown Christmas, Religion, and the Conventions of the Genre"
Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 26.1 (2014)

Saturday, December 19, 2015

In those days
Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where
she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard
Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with
the Holy Spirit and explained with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that
the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your
greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed
that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

A
few weeks ago, a couple of our Presbyterians had a harsh discovery: somebody had
ordered the wrong devotional booklets for Advent. It was an honest mistake. The
plan was to order a few different varieties, each of them undated, so that if
any of us wanted a devotional booklet for the season, they would have a choice.
A catalog was found, a few varieties were selected and ordered, and then they
were placed out on the countertop for people to choose.

The
first Sunday after they arrived, I was greeting people at the back door when I
overheard a brief conversation. Two of our folks had each taken an identical
booklet with a very attractive cover. They were flipping through the pages, and
to their shock, a good bit of the booklet was about Mary, the mother of Jesus.
There was a page devoted to the Immaculate Conception, and another page about a
holy day called the Solemnity of Mary.

This
was getting their attention. “Look at this: it’s not just the Virgin Birth. It
talks about the Assumption, whatever the Assumption is. And here – it refers to
her as the Mother of God.” The two of them looked stunned. Then one of them
blurted out, “These can’t be for us. We’re Presbyterians. We don’t talk about
Mary.”

I
didn’t catch how the conversation went on from there, but there’s some truth to
what she said. Presbyterians don’t talk about Mary. Oh, we bring her out for a
Sunday or two in December – like today – but pretty soon, we wrap her in blue tissue
paper and return her to the attic. Mary doesn’t get as much attention as her
son.

A
Catholic priest once explained why. We were having coffee when the subject came
up. He looked both ways, checked to make sure the coast is clear, and said, “You
may have noticed the Catholic Church is run by a lot of guys. I think we focus
so much on Mary because it’s a way for women to engage in the Christian faith.
She welcomes all of us in the way the she first welcomed Christ.”

Then
he said, “My question is why you Protestants don’t talk about her at all.” Good
question. One quick answer is we don’t know much about her, other than she is
the mother of our Lord. We can presume she was young; Palestinian brides were
promised to the grooms not long after they were mature enough to bear children.
From the few stories we have, we know she was a faithful Jew, a child of God’s
covenant.

Mary
doesn’t get a lot of ink in the New Testament, especially not compared to her
Son. It is quite possible that, just as John the Baptist is quickly dismissed
from the Gospel stories after he does his introductory work, Mary is equally
downplayed to keep the spotlight on Jesus. She appears at the beginning of the
story, and at the end of the story she takes her place at the foot of the
cross. After the resurrection, Luke numbers her among the first circle of
Christian believers (Acts 1:14). But then, she’s gone.

What
do we say about her after that? Some years ago, I was boarding a tour bus
outside of the ruins of Ephesus, that ancient city in present-day Turkey
rivaled only by Rome and Alexandria. It’s an extraordinary place, and a few of
you have been there. Someone in our tour group said, “Hey, look at this!” There
was a sign pointing to the “House of the Virgin Mary.” We looked at one
another, and somebody wondered if she might be at home.

According
to the tradition, Jesus handed off his mother to the apostle John when he was
on the cross. He said, “Take care of her; now she’s your mother.” (John 19:26-27).
Decades later, John supposedly landed in Ephesus with Mary at his side. There
was a house, they say it was her house, but who can now say? It was left open
enough for all kinds of speculation … and a good bit of well-placed reverence.

She
gave birth to Jesus, after all. She had other children after him, but that
first-born boy came completely from the grace of God. He bore the Christ Child
and all that came with it. That alone would mark her as special. There are
songs that ask, “Mary, did you know” what was going to happen to your Son? Just
remember what the old man Simeon pronounced on the day the baby Jesus would be
dedicated in the Temple. He looked at Mary and declared, “Because of this
little boy, a sword will pierce your soul.” (2:34-35) It’s a description of the
best possible outcome of being a parent.

Indeed
it would. If God brings a child into your life, it is holy invitation to set
aside your self-important agenda and to offer yourself to this heavenly gift in
swaddling clothes. If you take a child seriously, it will smash the protective
wall around your heart and leave you vulnerable. That’s what love does – it
makes you vulnerable.

I
sat with a couple of parents in the emergency room. Their daughter had tipped
her bike in an intersection, got scuffed up, had a cast on her arm, but was
otherwise OK. Her parents were more shaken up than she was. The father blurted
out, “I didn’t realize I could be this worried or this devoted.” He shook his
head and said, “God, it’s a wonderful feeling.” I took his words to be a
prayer.

This
morning, the Gospel of Luke tells us this story of two women who are welcoming
children into the world. In their time, in their culture, that would be
regarded by men as an insignificant story, hardly worthy of the pages of
scripture. But Luke knows better. God comes to us in the ordinary – and
extraordinary – gift of a child. Children are born every day. That’s common. A child
is one of the most generous gifts that God can give us.

Oh,
how the world would be so much better if we welcomed every child!

Unfortunately,
the world is still a mess. Maybe the whole galaxy is, too: I went to see the
new Star Wars movie on opening night, and here’s a spoiler alert – the movie is
full of dysfunctional families. There is brokenness and sin, difficulty and
pain, and it pervades everything that we know.

But
God has something else in mind, and that’s why God sends a baby to Mary. God’s
angel said to her, “He will be holy, he will be great, he will rule over God’s
people forever – and he will be yours to bear.” Hers is the womb that brings
the grace and healing of God into the world. Her child Jesus shall heal all the
God gives him to heal. All who love her child shall live by love. And it is
Mary’s task to welcome him first.

She
hears all of this, she knows all of this – so she runs to her relative
Elizabeth, enters the house, and says, “Hello!” But no sooner does she arrive
when Elizabeth does all the talking. The Holy Spirit of God is in her as well.
Without any other introduction, she knows what Mary had come to announce,
because the Holy Spirit is in her. The child in her womb gives her a great big
kick, which she takes to mean the Holy Spirit is with her child. And the whole
moment is described by two words: blessing and joy.

It
is a blessing because it is God who is at work. The nature of a blessing is
that we don’t bless ourselves - there is a Power greater than us, who loves us,
who desires our healing, who comes to make all things well. God is beyond us,
but comes to us. That’s the blessing.

And
the blessing creates joy. Not merely happiness, but joy. Joy is that
exhilarating freedom that lifts us beyond our circumstances. It is the way out
when there is no other escape. It is the first sign of God’s holy repair when
all else seems lost. It is, as the prophets call it, “light dawning in
darkness.” It is the first signal that God has found us, that indeed God is
with us, and that all appearances to the contrary, everything shall turn out
well. That’s joy.

And
that’s why we talk about Mary. She is the first Christian, for who believes God
has come in Jesus. She is also the first theologian, for we hear repeatedly
that she ponders the Incarnation in her heart. She is the first practitioner of
Christian hospitality: she welcomes the Word that her Son will come, and thus
she welcomes the Incarnate God into her life. For her, faith is not just an
idea, it’s a Child – and not just any child, but the Holy Child of God.

So
we talk about Mary. Her presence in the Gospel story is a reminder that faith
is not a bunch of ideas. It’s lived out in flesh and blood. Faith is singing
with joy that God has heard our cry and comes to join us in the midst of our
very human lives. Faith is taking care of each child entrusted to us,
particularly when they are small and vulnerable. Faith is committing our time
and love to those whom God has chosen to bring into our lives.

And
just as the song says, faith is trusting that the baby that Mary delivers will
soon deliver her[1] – and all of us who love
him and trust him.

That’s
why we talk about Mary. A mother’s “yes” has changed the world.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

John
said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?Bear fruits worthy of repentance . . . And
the crowds asked him, “What then should
we do?”In reply he said
to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and
whoever has food must do likewise.”Even
tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?”He
said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”Soldiers
also asked him, “And we, what should we
do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false
accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

The
Bible has no interest in tidying up John the Baptist. He is God’s Voice in the
wilderness, standing beyond the boundary of civilized society and calling all
people to prepare for the coming of God. From the sounds of it, he was blunt
and rather direct.

When
John appeared, a lot of people went out to hear him preach. They heard him say
the Messiah is coming, and this inspired home. They wanted to get ready, to get
baptized into his home and change their lives. John sees them come, and he
yells out with sarcasm: “You are a pack of snakes, trying to wiggle away from
the fire.” He doesn’t care about hurting anybody’s feelings. He is the voice in
the wilderness.

Not
only does John sound like a prophet, he dresses like one of the old-time prophets.
His cloak comes from the hide of a camel, which means he also smells like one
of the prophets. He is a force of nature, calling all people to prepare for the
coming of God. They come, and they listen, and they want to know, “What must we
do?”

Apparently
it is not enough to be baptized. You have to do something with your life after
the water has dried. You can’t sit around and say, “I’m saved from the fire.”
No, your life has to “bear fruit,” he says. If you trust that God is coming, there
has to be evidence in the way that you live. So the people ask, “What must we
do?”

What
is striking to me is what John doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “Get yourself to
church,” which is something I might say. I remember fourteen years ago, on the
Sunday after 9-11, this church was full. There were folding chairs in the
aisles. People were shaken up. They wanted comfort and security. They wanted to
know the world was going to be OK.

A
week later, attendance was back to normal. Apparently they got enough comfort
and security to go back to the way they were. Either that, or they realized
that going to church is not a lucky rabbit’s foot to keep trouble away. John
doesn’t say, “Go to church,” sing some hymns, pray some prayers, and get
inoculated from the danger. He doesn’t say that.

No,
he understands that real change in our lives is not lived out in the worship
sanctuary for an hour a week. Real change is how we live our lives in a world
like this. So John goes for the heart – actually he goes for the pocketbook.
Three times his earnest listeners ask, “What must we do?” Three times, he
responds by speaking of money and possessions.

The
general crowds ask, “If the Messiah is coming, what must we do?” John says, “If
you have two coats, share with the person who has none, and do the same with
your food.” So I looked in my hall closet and counted seven coats. I have seven
coats. I asked the rest of my family, and they said I wasn’t allowed to tell
you how many coats they have. John says, “Share with the needy.”

Then
the tax collectors came up. They wanted to be baptized and get ready for the
Messiah, so they said, “What should we do?” John looked at these people who
were recruited and employed by the Roman Empire. It was a terrible system of
domination. The job of the tax collector was to take money from their fellow
peasants to pay for the Empire’s soldiers who occupied their towns. In turn,
they could charge whatever additional fees they could get. John says, “Don’t
collect any more than the amount prescribed for you.” That is, live modestly
and don’t exploit your neighbors for financial gain.

Then
some soldiers came – I think that means the soldiers of the foreign Empire,
with all their weaponry and all their protective armor. Some of them wanted to
be baptized too, so they asked, “What must we do?” John stared them down and
said, “Don’t shake down any money from these people by threat or accusation, and
be satisfied with the money you have.”

The
Messiah is coming. Share your abundance, don’t plunder your neighbors for your
own profit, and don’t extort or intimidate by violence. This is what you do. I
suppose there is more we could do, but this is John’s list, as reported by the
Gospel of Luke.

It’s
so typical of Luke to talk about money. The Gospel of Luke must have been
written for people who knew about the dark side of poverty, and who struggled
with the darker side of affluence. And Luke knows what you and I know: that
money divides family members against one another, that money ties up the judicial
courts and the political system, and that money and possessions can be shared
to build community or hoarded in ways that destroy community.

And
when you have a huge imbalance between those who have everything and those who
have nothing, you don’t have the kingdom of God. This is the Bible. This is
what it says. Share, don’t plunder, don’t extort, for God is coming and we must
be ready.

Maybe
it’s hard for some of us to wrap our brains around John’s preaching. He intrudes
upon the Grand American Christmas and splashes some cold water on the
proceedings. His words are sharp and bracing – because they are the Gospel.

And
from the conversation that about thirty of us had at last Wednesday night’s Advent
study group, we know them to be true. There has to be more to Christmas, more
to the birth of Christ in our world, than mere buying and selling of stuff.
There has to be giving and sharing from deep within our hearts. It’s not enough
to have an idea. The idea must be turned into action. It’s not enough to have a
dream. The dream must be turned into a plan. It’s not enough to see a vision.
The vision must have an open heart and generous hands.

So
you and I: if Christ is coming and we wish to greet him, what must we do? Let
me have you mull that over while I tell you a couple of stories.

Here
is the first. Today we will sing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” It is a
favorite of a lot of people, and it may surprise you that it almost didn’t make
the cut to get into one of our hymnals. By definition, a hymn speaks to God or
speaks about God – and God is never directly mentioned in “It Came Upon a
Midnight Clear.” There are angels, but they are singing above our heads. In
fact, as Christmas carols go, this particular carol doesn’t even mention
Christmas. But it was included because of the larger message.

The
words were written by Edmund Sears, a pastor in Massachusetts. Sears was a
Unitarian who believed very strongly in Jesus. When he wrote the carol in 1849,
he was having a hard time of it. He had recently resigned a pastorate due to
burn out. His voice was shot and his spirit was depressed, so he moved to a
smaller parish and took a significant pay cut.[1] But
he believed that above his own condition, the angels were singing.

Not
only that, Sears was troubled by the state of the world around him. The Mexican-American
War had just concluded, and he was no fan of war. So he wrote verse three:Yet with the woes of sin and strife, the
world has suffered long.Beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled
two thousand years of wrong,And we at war on earth hear not the
tidings that they bring,O, hush the noise and cease the strife
to hear the angels sing.

Meanwhile,
in his region of New England, the factories and mills are busting, but at the
expense of factory workers. There were low wages, long hours, unsafe
conditions, child laborers, and grinding poverty. So Sears composed verse four:And you, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,who toil along the climbing way with
painful steps and slow,look now for glad and golden hours come
swiftly on the wingO rest beside the weary road, and hear
the angels sing.[2]

There
is a greater music around us and above us. Edmund Sears knew that, he trusted
that, he bequeathed that message to us in his carol. But he also knew that the
world can’t welcome the angelic song unless specific changes are made in how we
treat one another, how we battle one another, and what we do with our economics.
Because of our “sin and strife,” the world continues to be a mess, while above
it, God declares justice and peace.

Here
is the second story. In elegant Princeton, New Jersey, there are two
Presbyterian churches. Nassau Church is the rich white church, surrounded by an
Ivy League campus. At the other end of town is Witherspoon Church in an
historically black neighborhood and not so rich. In one of the wealthiest zip
codes in America, there are two churches divided by race and economic situation.

So
it turns out that a white minister named David Prince was serving as the
interim pastor at Witherspoon Church. He heard bitter stories of how one of the
pastors of that African American congregation had been driven out of town by
the white ministers, so he began to look into it and discovered it was true.

The
Rev. William Robeson served the Witherspoon Church. He fought for the rights of
black people and preached the Gospel of racial equality. In the year 1900, he
was considered a trouble maker by the community. He just wouldn’t keep quiet
about the injustice of the Jim Crow laws or the indignities that his people suffered.
So he spoke up – and the community leaders appealed quietly to the white
Presbyterian leaders, and he was removed from his pulpit. He hadn’t done
anything legally wrong. He was merely considered uppity. After his dismissal, he
and his former church both fell on hard times.

David
Prince uncovered the story, which had been buried in a leather-bound book of
Presbytery meeting minutes. As he shared the truth, everybody agreed that this
couldn’t stand. So a month ago, at the 175th anniversary dinner of
the Witherspoon church, there was a formal apology, a request for forgiveness
in the name of Christ, and many tears of reconciliation.[3]

Then
the Synod of the Northeast presented a grant of $173,000 to pay the remaining
mortgage on Rev. Robeson’s home, where his son, the famous entertainer Paul
Robeson had been born. The church had recently repurchased the home, and has struggled
to keep up with the payments. Now the wider church has given it to them as a
gift, to make things right. Harold Delhagen, the synod executive, said, “I can’t
think of a better use of mission money. We have to do justice and not
just talk about it.”[4]

“For
lo, the days are hastening on…” God is coming among us – so what must we do? John
says share what we have with those who need it most. Don’t take advantage of the
people around us. Don’t use force or threat for personal gain. In short, treat
your neighbors even better than you wish to be treated, for that is the shape
of grace in our world.

This
is the good news of God, and the One who embodies God’s grace is coming.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

See,
I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you
seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom
you delight—indeed, he is coming, says theLordof
hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he
appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap;he will sit as a
refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and
refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to theLordin
righteousness.Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem
will be pleasing to theLordas in the days
of old and as in former years.

A
couple of men were chatting over coffee last week. They were talking over the
news of the day, holiday traffic, and neighborhood light displays. Inevitably
the conversation turned to Christmas, and one of them asked, “Is there anything you want for
Christmas this year?” The other one chuckled, “I want to get through Christmas
unscathed.”

It
was the first time I ever heard somebody say it, and I knew exactly what he was
talking about. Despite all the excitement and the artificial light, this is a
difficult season for a lot of people. If you have any sickness in your family,
it’s hard to keep up with your own expectations. If your loved ones have
scattered across the country, there will be lines at the post office, and worse
lines in the airports. If money is tight, your kids and grandkids are still bombarded
by commercials for toys that cost way too much money. And if you are still grieving
the loss of somebody you love, there is the weight of carrying on long-established
traditions while there is an empty chair at the kitchen table.

Yes,
this can be a tough time for a lot of us. It is hard to simply say so. If you
are feeling blue, somebody could accuse you of being a Grinch. If you are
watching your budget, you could be renamed Ebenezer Scrooge. It may be enough
to just keep your head down and get through it all, unscathed and intact.

Today’s
scripture texts don’t relieve the difficulty. John the Baptist is sent by God
to the Jordan River. In the name of God, he barks out a message of change: “God
is coming,” he says. “It’s time to turn around and come home.”

Maybe
you saw the Christmas card on Pinterest.[1]
There’s the snarling face of John, who says, “You brood of vipers! Who warned
you from the wrath that is to come?” And inside is the message, “From our house
to yours, have a wonderful Advent!”

Or
there is the prophet Malachi, whom we heard a minute ago. Someone mentioned a
trip to the shopping mall. The parking was terrible, the crowd was surging and
impatient. Over top of it all, the management had decided to play some
classical music, perhaps to calm the crowd. There was a selection from Handel’s
Messiah: “Who can abide the day of his coming?” – but from the looks of it,
nobody was abiding it very well.

Handel
took that text from the prophet Malachi, a shadowy figure who spoke almost 500
years before the birth of Jesus. Five hundred years is a long time to keep
sounding a warning. Malachi is the prophet who says God is going to come and
burn up all the evildoers and the arrogant (4:1-2). When John the Baptist
appears, he uses pretty much the same script. God is coming. Who will be able
to stand before him?

In
fact, when an angel predicts the birth of John, he repeats some of the phrases
that the prophet Malachi used: “There will be a messenger like the great
prophet Elijah. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children.”[2]

The point of all this is the necessity
of change. God is coming, we can’t stay the way we are. And to hear the prophet
Malachi or the prophet John, nobody gets through Christmas unscathed. That is,
not if it is to be a holy day.

So here is the Advent question: where
in our lives do we need to make a change? What are some of the bad habits
that we can’t do any more? Where have we tripped and fallen, and need to get
back up? What regrets are we holding? What mistakes have we made?

And then the big one: how have we lived
without God – and, in any practical sense, how are we going to return? Anybody
have a list? Let me give you a minute to inhabit your own list . . .

The prophet speaks of change. No doubt, each
of us can think of some correction of behavior or some scrubbing of the soul. But
listen to how the prophet Malachi understands this. It’s not primarily a matter
of self-improvement, although all of us are imperfect and everybody can do
something to improve. In fact, if you listen to Malachi, the emphasis is not so
much on us and our efforts, but on God. It is God who will change us, God who
will purify.

Malachi uses two pictures to describe
the work of God. It is like a refiner’s fire, he says. Something as valuable as
silver or gold will be heated in the furnace, and all the impurities burned
away. All the unnecessary material will be removed. All the ugliness will be
purged. The fire of God's Spirit will do this.

What I haven’t pointed out, of course, is
that when Malachi says this, he’s taking aim at the clergy, at the professional
religious people. In his short little book, he has nothing good to say about the
ministers and priests of his time. They have offered second-rate sacrifices to
God (1:7-10), they’ve preached lousy sermons (2:4-9), and they haven’t kept up
with their tithing (3:8-10). God says, “You are robbing me! You are not giving
your best.” With this, God says, “I will
purify you as a furnace refines silver.”

And Malachi speaks of fuller’s soap.
That was a strong lye-based soap that scrub out the dirt from your clothes. It
was very caustic, but it got the job done.

I remember when my mom taught me how to throw
a dirty pair of blue jeans into the washer. I never knew you could lift the lid
and put them in; she always did that. One day, she said, “Throw your dirty
clothes in the washer.” I had some blue jeans with some grass stains, so I
threw them in. Then I did something that I had watched her do – I added some
bleach. In fact, they were really dirty, so I added a half-gallon of bleach.
That will do the job!

Can you imagine what kind of job it did?
All the grass stains were gone, along with most of the color and a good bit of
the cloth. But whatever was left of my blue jeans was clean!

So here’s what I am wondering: maybe we
aren’t supposed to get through Christmas “unscathed.” Maybe, just maybe, God is
doing something to shake us up, to invite us home, and to make us more like
Jesus.

Take a moment to go back to your list of
imperfections: is there anything on that list that God is changing in you? That could be a sign of the seasonal scrubbing that God wishes to do with you.
Consider a few things:

If you are worn out by the hustle and
bustle of the shopping season, why not stand up to it? Rather than purchase a
lot of gifts, invest in some experiences. Who are the people you love, and how
can you spend time with them? Spending time is more costly and generous than
merely spending money.

If you are dismayed by the ceaseless
reports of violence in our world, and they are many, find some way to work for
peace. One way to start is to seek out somebody who is not like you, and work
to befriend them. Take seriously the differences between you. Work to
understand the other’s point of view. Find places where your common humanity
intersects. Invite them to eat with you, and pay for the meal. Peace has to
start face to face. Will it fix the world? Not yet, but it might begin to fix
you.

If you are sad, lonely, or angry for any
reason, don’t try to outrun how you feel. Let the feelings come, because we can’t
turn off our feelings. At the same time, we don’t need to let our feelings possess
us. There is more to this good life from God than how we happen to feel about
it on any given day. So enlarge your point of view – go for a walk and get some
fresh air, do something for somebody else, reach out to a person in need. Or my
favorite: pray your discontent - name it and hand it off to God. If you can’t
fix something, let God be the Savior. That is God’s job.

One more thing: if there’s any part of
Christmas that seems empty to you, listen to what Malachi said to the religious
leaders of his time: they made half-hearted sacrifices to God that really weren’t
sacrifices at all. They went to the temple to offer their leftovers, and never
offered their hearts. They looked for shortcuts, rather than keep the
covenantal commitments. They said all the righteous words, but their souls were
not engaged.

Here’s the invitation. God sets a Table
before us. God offers to meet us here in bread and cup of Christ. God invites
us to come, and promises to welcome us as we are. So here is the place, now is
the time. Come to the living God and offer yourself. Bring your doubts and your
fears, drop your burdens and forget your impurities. Hear once again how much God
loves you, and welcome the grace of Jesus Christ.

Maybe
you think you can get to this Table unscathed, but I will be praying that you will
be transformed.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

The days are surely coming, says theLord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous
Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness
in the land.In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in
safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “TheLordis our righteousness.”

The woman looked up
from the morning newspaper and said, “I just don’t know what the world is
coming to.” The headlines were grim: gunman shoots up a clinic in Colorado, protests
on Michigan Avenue in Chicago over a white cop shooting a black teenager, tensions
are high between Russia and Turkey after a plane was shot down, and a
presidential candidate makes fun of the disabled.

The world is a mess, no
doubt about that. It’s tempting to think it is worse than it always has been,
and that’s not true. The thorns and thistles have been with us since Adam and
Eve found themselves expelled from the Garden of Eden. The names have changed,
the situation is the same. The woman shuts the newspaper, folds it on the
kitchen table, and heads off to church.

It’s the first Sunday
of Advent, and the preacher reads the ancient text: “Thus says the Lord: the
days are surely coming when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of
Israel and the house of Judah.” Suddenly, for her, there is new glimmer of a
star in the sky.

Advent begins by
holding the world as it is with the world as it will be. We look around to see
how things are, and we hold that in tension with what God declares is going to
come. If we don’t hold both together, we either sink into despair or we stumble
around in a pink bubble of optimism. Either we moan and groan that all things
are swirling down the drain, or we put on a plastic grin and declare that it’s
all going to get better.

The message of Advent
is that neither position will do. Neither dark despair nor sunny optimism will
do. We need something more. We need hope.

Hope is a misunderstood
word.

Are the Yankee going to win the world series next year? “I
hope.” But biblically speaking, that’s not hope.

Will the family get in for Christmas? “We hope.” But
that’s not the Bible’s view of hope.

Will the next president of our country eradicate evil,
rebuild prosperity, and get all of our leaders to work together for the
common good? “That’s our hope.” But
you won’t find that kind of hope in the Bible.

Often, we use the word “hope”
when we really mean “wish.” We wish for the World Series, the family travel,
and national peace. All of those things are valuable, which is why we want
them. We wish for them. Each may be out of our control, but we can wish for
them to come true. I wish for a white Christmas with no ice on the roads, a full
sanctuary for all of our worship services, and for everybody who made a financial
pledge to the church to get caught up. When I open my eyes, I can wish that all
of that is true.

Yet when the Bible
speaks of hope, there is no wishing involved. And do you know why that is? Because
it is not our wishes for the future, but God’s declaration of what is to come. The
God who is eternal, who straddles past, present and future, already knows what
is to come. And the same God who spoke the world into being is speaking the
future into existence. God already knows what is to come, because God is
already there. But God is also with us, here and now.

I trust that doesn’t
cause your brain to explode, and I wouldn’t want you to take my word for it.
Simply put, this is how the Bible creates hope. God speaks from somewhere ahead
of us, and when we hear it, we have hope.

Our three verses of Jeremiah
are a good test case. They come out of the blue. You can tell from the phrase, “Thus
says the Lord.” That’s how the prophets like Jeremiah announce the Holy Voice.
It’s usually a Voice that comes out of the blue, hardly ever expected. And in
Jeremiah’s case, God speaks when nobody knew what to say.

It was a dark and
stormy time for the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. After centuries of
internal upheaval, life was about to get worse. The Babylonian Empire was on
the way to plunder the land and take all its riches away. As somebody notes, Jeremiah’s
job was “to speak Israel into exile.”[1]

In his call, God gave
him the word to “pluck up and plant” (1:10). Israel was going to be painfully aware
of the “plucking up.” We grumble if we have to remove our shoes to go through a
security screening, or recoil in anguish if terrorists strike somewhere
else. Imagine if your whole country were
on the brink of destruction, the treasuries were to be emptied, and all the
smart people stolen as slaves.

Not only that: imagine all that happened, and
you still hold the memory that God has said, “Your nation is my chosen and
beloved. Your temple is my footstool on earth.” And the Babylonians still come.
The questions would be many. Has God left us? Is the Babylonian Empire greater
than our God? What will come of us?

Into this fearful time,
“Thus says the Lord…” And we heard what God declares (it’s brief, I’ll say it
again):

The days are surely coming when I will fulfill the promise I
made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous
Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness
in the land.In
those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is
the name by which it will be called: “TheLordis our righteousness.”

Now, there is the
substance of the hope. God will keep the promises made to the people. God will
send a Ruler to make justice and righteousness in the land. God will rescue the
people.

So when is
this going to happen? Nobody knows.

Why can’t
it happen now? Ah, you’re
wishing again.

How do we
know it’s really going to occur? Because God says so.

See, that is how the
Bible understands hope, true hope. Hope is something that God declares. We can
doubt it or dispute it, but the words are in the air. We can live as if it’s an
ancient and archaic word, but the prophet wrote it down. Again, we live in the
tension between the world as we know it and the world as God declares it will
be. This is Advent. Officially speaking, Advent is only the season of four weeks
preceding Christmas, but do you understand me when I say that, for all of us,
Advent is every day of the year.

One of my daughters hates
to be a sermon illustration, but I figure it’s safer to use her for a sermon
illustration than to use one of your daughters or sons. She lives in Washington
DC and goes to school there. One day this summer, she called. Her voice was
shaking. One of her friends was getting out of a cab. A car sped by and there
was gunfire. Her friend was killed, totally randomly, by somebody who was never
found.

What do you say? “There,
there, it will be all right”? No, that’s an empty wish. It has no spiritual
protein. It’s not going to help. For a moment, I wanted to say, “Come home, we’re
going to get you out of that dangerous place,” but that presumes a random act
of violence will never happen here. That is unrealistic, and an empty wish.

I can’t remember what I
did say. I think I stammered in fear, too numb to speak, too worried about my
kid to have the best words to console. In time, however, what has come to me is
the Advent promise of God. It goes like this: this is not how God will rule the
world. God says “justice and righteousness.” God declares the lion and the lamb
shall lie down together (Isaiah 11:6-7). God says our children will play
together safely in the streets of the city (Zechariah 8:5).

In the image of
Jeremiah, a “righteous branch will spring up for David.” That is an unusual
phrase, which he has said before. The translation from Hebrew doesn’t quite fit
our English, but the sense is this: a green sprout will come from the ground
unexpectedly. It emerges from the mystery of God who speaks it into new life.
And it’s a reminder to all of us that, should we see an unexpected emergence of
a plant or a tree, God is behind it. And the One that God will send to rule
over us will come in a similar way: unexpected, desperately wished for, and full
of life.

So we gather this
Advent, hoping for the Christ. As Christian people, we affirm God has kept the
promises to his people. The Righteous One has come in the line of King David.
He creates justice and righteousness among those who hear him say, “Love your
neighbor, feed my lambs, speak truth to power, live in forgiveness, create
peace.” We listen to his voice, believe it is true, and live by his words.

And yet we live in the
holy hope that Christ will come again, and bring all things together in the
justice of God. He will come because God is fair and gracious. He will come
because God has not given up on the earth and the creatures that God has
created. He will come because God has spoken our hope.